


Freak

by DrSteggy



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Horses, Unicorns, Veterinarians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28472400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrSteggy/pseuds/DrSteggy
Summary: Mulder and Scully investigate a veterinarian's unusual patient.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Freak

**Author's Note:**

> I consider myself a new fic writer, because I’ve only had the AO3 account for about a year. However, in the 90s I was very obsessed with the X Files, and I read a ton of fic on Usenet. Eventually, I wrote one, too.
> 
> I don’t believe I ever posted it.
> 
> Time rolled on and I thought my X Files fic sat on some floppy disk where I could no longer get to it. What I remembered about it was the idea behind the story, but I thought I had never finished it.
> 
> And then on New Year’s Eve, I was trying to upgrade something on my Mac and was searching for some back up file, and I stumbled over an old folder with the title of my X Files fic. Apparently it had gone on some old computer and just got moved along as I aged through machines. I was able to open it, and to my surprise, it had been finished. I thought it might be fun to fix some typos and post it for curiosities sake, especially since I see people are still writing X Files fics, and it’s even a little bigger then the fandom I currently write for.
> 
> So, to be clear, this story is set in the late 90s and cell phones are not ubiquitous and they certainly don’t fit in your pocket. I’ve left the formatting stuff we used to help find things from the Usenet days. This is a 21 year old fic, and I’m posting it for its time capsule qualities.

TITLE -Freak (1/1)  
AUTHOR -DrSteggy  
E-MAIL ADDRESS -lol neither of them work anymore anyway  
RATING -G  
CATEGORY -X/S  
SPOILERS -None  
KEYWORDS -Horses, veterinary medicine  
SUMMARY -Mulder and Scully investigate a veterinarian's unusual patient.

DISCLAIMER: All the X-Files elements of this story belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, Fox, whoever. I'm not making any money from this anyway. And if you want to sue, you're more than welcome to my student loans. Heck, I'll fork 'em over now. 

ARCHIVE: Sure, why not? Tell me where so I can visit.

FEEDBACK: Tell me what you liked, what you didn't. Help me learn. Please direct any constructive criticism to either of these defunct email addresses 

WRITTEN: Wooooo, actually over a really long span of time...but its present incarnation was done between February 1998 and June 1999. See author's notes at end for details.

Author's notes at end of story.

FREAK (1/1)

As a veterinarian, I've seen a lot of odd stuff. I'm only doing small animal practice these days, but I began my career working on horses near Albany, New York. The strangest thing I have ever seen happened when I'd been out of school only two or three years. It all began innocently enough.

"Isn't he the darnedest thing, Doc?" Jane asked. "I mean, have you ever seen a horse born white before?" 

Jane Madison was a client of mine with an older quarter horse mare named Star. In their heyday, Star and Jane had been champions at local hunter shows. Star got hurt and was retired. Jane never found another horse she really clicked with. Last February, she had called me because Star was fat and mysteriously getting fatter. I examined Star and discovered the mare to be about 6 months in foal. Today, the 27th of July, I dropped by to inspect the foal who had arrived sometime the night before.

Jane's little backyard barn was down the road from The Meadow. The Meadow was a very classy operation that produced some very fine warmblood horses. One of their stallions, a gray by the name of Up And Away, was notorious for jumping out of his pasture. Usually, his escapades were confined to the farm grounds, but every once in a while wanderlust sent him exploring. Jane could recall finding part of the fence down sometime the summer before, and she was pretty sure that had been at about the same time as one of Up And Away's escapes. She never saw the gray stallion with Star though. We discussed the possibility of DNA testing Star, the foal and the stallion at the time I discovered Star's pregnancy, but Jane hadn't made any decisions about trying to track down the foal's father. Maybe having the colt on the ground would renew her interest in finding the sire. His color sure had me perplexed.

"I thought white horses were born dark and got lighter as they got older." Jane tickled the new foal under the jaw.

White horses can be a confusing issue. Most adult horses that appear white are born a darker color and get more white hairs every time they shed their coat. Horse people call these horses grays. A truly white horse is much less common than a gray, and white horses are born white. A white foal did throw a monkey wrench into our Up And Away theory though. Without trying to explain all the mysteries of equine color genetics, let me just say that a white foal must have a white parent. Star was a dark bay and Up And Away was a gray that had been born chestnut. I explained this to Jane and she rolled her eyes.

"Then who's the sire, Doc? I haven't heard about any runaway stallions around here, white or otherwise." One of the dubious charms of horse practice is that your clients will always either call you "Doc" or by your first name. Yes, 8 years of college and grad school and I get to be "Carolyn." Or better, "Doc Carolyn." Amusingly, most of the horse clients will refer to their small animal vet as "Dr. So-and-so." As though being a dog and cat doctor is more respectable than being a horse doctor.

I didn't have an answer to Jane's question. The foal appeared healthy and very vigorous. Star was mothering her newborn well. Unexplained pregnancies in horses aren't as common as they are with dogs and cats, but they do happen from time to time.

The white foal was something of a seven day wonder back at the office. My technician and I speculated on candidates for the foal's father, but we couldn't create a really plausible theory. The other vets in the practice didn't have any ideas either. I forgot about Star and her baby as I got into the summer routine of attending three-day events and horse shows until Jane called me when the foal was about a month old. She was in a panic.

"The farrier came out today to trim Star's feet and *all four* of the foal's feet are badly cracked! You have to come out immediately!"

I expected the worst. As I set a new land speed record on I87 (and without getting pulled over again!) I made a list in my head of possible diagnoses. Cracked feet in a month old foal, though....perhaps Star's baby had some kind of genetic disease that was raising its ugly head.

My Jeep threw up clouds of dust in Jane's driveway, and after a quick search, found her in the barn. She was in a tizzy, hovering over the foal. Star wasn't making things easier as she picked up on her owner's tension and kept trying to put herself between Jane and the foal. The foal was getting excited, and, as far as I could see, was emphatically not lame. I tranquilized Star (and was half tempted to offer Jane a little Valium) and examined the foal's feet. Thankfully, Jane had been working with the baby and he allowed me to restrain him and have a look at his feet. All four hooves had a ground to coronary band split on the midline, which should have crippled the foal. I picked a foot up and discovered that the foot was cloven, like a cow's foot, not cracked.

"Jane, look at this. He's got extra toes." I tried to sound cool but interested, like I saw cloven hoofed foals all the time. Inside I was saying, what in hell...?

"Extra toes?" Jane's voice was full of disbelief.

Millions of years ago, horses did have more than one toe. As they grew bigger, they slowly lost the extras and today only skeletal remnants called "splints" are left. I had heard of horses born with extra toes though...excruciatingly rare condition. One I needed to research.

Hitting my reference texts proved pretty useless. The condition was mentioned in passing a few times, and the one picture I found looked nothing like my foal with calf feet. I called Cornell, my alma mater, but the residents there didn't have anything new to add. I opted to keep close tabs on Star's baby. The foal never took a lame step and kept up with his mother in the pasture just fine. Jane was worried about her foal's "deformity," figuring the youngster's potential show career was over before it began. 

Summer wandered into autumn, and the maples were at their reddest when I visited Jane, Star and the newly christened Freak for fall vaccinations and deworming. Jane had a new problem with Freak. The foal was developing a lump on his head, dead center between his eyes. Jane noticed it about a week earlier and assumed it was some kind of insect bite, but it seemed to be getting bigger.

This one's a no-brainer, I thought. Probably some kind of infection coming to a head. The thing to do would be to open it up and let the pus drain. I asked Jane to catch Freak, and she just looked at me as though I'd asked her to hand feed hotdogs to a shark.

"Everything OK, Jane?" I asked, going over the request in my head to make sure I hadn't said something stupid.

"Yeah, Carolyn," She paused and kept her eyes on Freak from the stall doorway. Freak was behaving as a three month old foal should, ignoring the humans and pestering his dam. "I just don't think he likes me very much."

I offered to do the deed myself. Freak did not look particularly threatening. I had wrested larger foals alone before. And when horses are concerned, sometimes no help is better than nervous help. Jane took me up on the offer and apologized, seeming ashamed.

Catching Freak was uneventful. Restraining him was no problem. Examining the bump on his head was no big deal. I covered his eyes with a blindfold and readied a #10 scalpel blade. He wouldn't see anything coming, and the most I'd deal with would probably be a big flinch when I cut him.

As soon as I pierced the skin he exploded. The foal shrieked and jumped four feet straight into the air, lashing out violently with all four legs, twisting and flailing like some psycho rodeo bronc. He threw me across the stall and I landed hard flat on my back at Star's feet. Star was snorting, calling for her foal and dancing nervously. I rolled out of the way, scrambled to my feet and darted out of the stall.

There's nothing for your reflexes quite like equine practice. 

Freak ran to his mother and nursed greedily. Star put herself between me and her baby and laid her ears back at me. Back off, she was saying. You are no longer welcome here.

Things had happened very quickly, but I did have some more information on that bump. For one thing, it sort of looked like the kind of bump calves get if they aren't dehorned. The sorts of bumps that become horns. For another, that blade had encountered something hard...like bone...beneath that skin. No abscess here. A bony growth that looked like a horn, and where in hell had that screaming, kicking monster come from..?

"...an ambulance...?!?"

"What?" I snapped out of my reverie. Jane was fluttering around me, convinced I had been mortally wounded even though I was standing in her barn aisle. "I'm fine."

"God, I am so sorry, I should have told you..." She was about to cry. "I, he's getting to where I almost can't touch him. I can't catch him anymore. When I try to corner him, he tries to kill me."

"Really, I'm fine," I knew tomorrow I'd pay for that hard landing. "I think that bump is more serious than a bug bite though. I'm thinking sarcoids..."

"A what? How can you think about that stuff after what just happened?"

Jane insisted that I come into her house to sit down. Over Maxwell House I explained to her what I thought was up with her foal.

Sarcoids are hard, fibrous tumors unique to horses. They tend to be brick hard masses on the head or forelegs. I warned Jane that sarcoids were highly unusual in a foal so young and recommended removal immediately, either by freezing the lump off, or by more conventional surgical means. I couldn't guarantee that the lump wouldn't come back after removal. 

Something fluttered at the back of my mind during the entire conversation. An image of a young calf, overdue for dehorning.

Jane sighed. "Now he might have cancer in his head. I can't even touch him! I won't be able to give him any medicine if he needs it, and I'm not going to let him kill me, for Christ's sake," I could see her wheels turning, and I wasn't sure of where they were going. "I can't afford this crap. I can't afford surgery or biopsies! I mean, I love horses, but I can't have surgery that might not work done on this foal! I can just about feed them as it is! I can't even sell this foal, he needs to find a new home, I can't deal with this anymore!"

I'd never seen Jane Madison reduced to tears before. 

It was against my better judgment, but my gut told me to do it. My gut is usually right about things like this, so I try to listen. "Jane, I'll take him once he's weaned. Old Blue needs a buddy."

So, for Christmas, Blue, my old hunter, got himself a pasture mate named Freak. By this time, Freak was a bouncy 5 months old. He was still white, still had cloven hooves and his horn was almost 6 inches long. His whiskers were almost a goatee. And he had gone from a shy, spooky foal to a standoffish and suspicious weanling. He did not like being touched. Fortunately, he had not yet figured out that he had a weapon on his head.

Now, by this time, the obvious had already occurred to me. I was looking at a horse with a horn. And what do you call a horse with a horn? A unicorn. I had a young unicorn in my barn. Jane lived far enough out in the middle of nowhere (and, even as close to the capital of New York as the practice was, it was surprisingly easy to be suddenly in the middle of nowhere) that not many people had seen Freak yet. My little rented barn and pastures were closer to civilization. Blue and Freak would have to live in the back pasture.

And where had this creature come from? Perhaps the unicorn legend was true. Perhaps unicorns did once walk the Earth and died out. Perhaps I was looking at some throwback. I suspected I knew better.

Perhaps...just maybe...unicorns did still walk the Earth and one of them had found his way into Star's pasture early last summer.....

...and no one ever saw this great white equid...?

Not possible.

Freak was a puzzle, and now he was my personal puzzle. I hoped to figure him out before something happened. Although, at the time, I wasn't sure what that something might be.

**********  
I arrived to feed the horses at about 6:30 am every day. The stalls opened out directly into the pasture, serving as shelter when I wasn't there to bring the horses in. Blue would be in his stall already, banging the feed tub against the wall, convinced he was starving. Freak would linger quietly outside his stall, waiting, watching my every move. I tossed them hay and doled out the grain and then I would just stand quietly outside Freak's stall and watch him while he ate.

At least, I did so until Freak refused to come into the stall at all if he could see me. Then came the day when he wasn't waiting outside his stall for breakfast. He still came in and ate (proved by locking Blue in his stall during the day so he couldn't help himself to Freak's share) or he did for a week or so. I started to feed him outside and that worked for a while, but eating close to the barn and fence slowly became intolerable for him. I began breaking open a bale of hay for him out in the middle of the pasture. That was acceptable. Or would be until the grass came in, I supposed.

I started coming to the barn earlier and earlier and stayed to watch him. He never ran the fence line, or into the fence and he never tried jumping out of the pasture. He would graze (or try to, given the time of year) next to Blue, and sometimes I saw them playing horsey games together. Some days he would watch me back, his pale blue eyes unreadable.

I have never been given to anthropomorphizing animals. I accept them as a fellow species sharing this world, but their brains just are not designed to behave the way a human being's does. I don't think this makes any of them a lesser species, just different ones.

When I graduated from veterinary school, I took an oath. Part of that oath swears me to use my scientific knowledge to help relieve animal suffering. There is no clear interpretation of this statement. Does the very captivity and confinement of animals cause them to suffer? Would my cat, who spends her life sleeping on my bed and has never had a need to hunt for her dinner, be happier if she were out in the elements and fighting starvation? Would Blue rather be out on the lone prairie rather than in a field where there are no predators and the meals are brought to him twice daily?

Would Freak?

On days when he stared back at me I thought about just leaving the gate open and walking away. Then I remembered that horse I'd seen hit by a Ford F250. What would Freak eat? What if feral dogs chased him? Would he know he had a horn to fend them off? Where did my responsibility lie? To Jane? To Freak? To myself?

At this point, I would just leave and get a cup of coffee. No one should  
try to solve any ethical problem before having caffeine on board anyway.  
I'd nurse the coffee while turning Freak's situation over in my head and  
then drive to the office to try and immerse myself in work. And yeah, I'd  
forget about him while I was suturing up a wound, or working up a colic.

But, at the end of the day, I had to go back to the barn and feed him again.

**********  
"Something" happened about mid-March, just over a year after the whole thing started.

It was my night off, and I was all ready to head off for a night out. Big Eighties night at Confetti's. I was going to pick up my buddy Kate--she and I never miss a chance to go do some team flirting and if we can do it to Dexys Midnight Runners, all the better. I showered and scrubbed myself until I smelled more of vanilla soap than manure. I put on a silk blouse, a black skirt and wrestled my feet into a pair of low heeled black pumps. I was digging around through my leather jacket's many pockets for the Jeep keys when the doorbell rang. I wasn't expecting anyone, and it was much too late for Jehovah's Witnesses.

I managed to skitter across the tile foyer floor without killing myself in the shoes. Opening the door revealed a well dressed couple I'd never seen before. He was tall, dark and devastating. She was about my height, a red head.

"Ms. Greene?" he asked.

"Actually, its Dr. Greene. Can I help you?"

Both of them pulled out badges and ID. FBI. "I'm Special Agent Mulder and this is Special Agent Scully. Do you mind if we talk to you for a minute?"

Special agent? FBI?

I felt my heart quicken and swore that the FBI agents standing on my stoop could see my pulse at the carotid artery. Eff-Bee-bloody-Eye? I'd never done anything to warrant this sort of attention. Well, OK, once I had written a term paper for someone, but the statute of limitations must have run out by now. And the guy had flunked out anyway, despite the A I'd gotten him. That wasn't considered a federal crime, was it? Had I done something really stupid, like left a bottle of ketamine at someone's place? I hadn't needed ketamine in so long though...

Special Agent "Studly" Mulder was suddenly a lot less attractive. I wanted nothing more than to be on my way to Confetti's. Now.

"Actually, I do mind. I'm on my way out."

"This won't take more than a minute," he insisted. Agent Scully gave me a sympathetic look but said nothing.

Well. They were the Feds. I guess Kate would have to wait for me. I let them in and the three of us retired to my small living room. Agent Mulder removed my neat stack of veterinary journals from the coffee table and settled himself on my couch. Agent Scully remained standing, her arms crossed. Mulder patted the couch next to him, inviting me to sit. I perched myself on the edge of the couch to his left.

I really, really wished I had more living room furniture. Putting that coffee table between me and those two would make me a lot more comfortable right now. 

"May I ask what I've done to deserve the pleasure of this little visit?"

"Actually, we're interested in a horse you have." Agent Mulder replied, as though I had one for sale.

"A HORSE?" I'd had Blue for 10 years. And he wasn't exactly the classy sort of horse who might have been a profitable steal even 10 years ago. Unless...

Agent Mulder produced a photograph from his coat. It was a picture of my back pasture. A picture of Freak in my back pasture. Then he pulled out three more pictures and spread them out on my coffee table, as though he were dealing some kind of weird poker hand. Or perhaps throwing down Tarot cards. Three more pictures of horses with horns...and none of these were my Freak. One was a foal with a date stamp from two years ago on it, one was a chestnut pinto, and the third was taken in some semi-tropical setting. Mulder launched into a monologue as I examined the pictures.

"These animals have all been born on the east coast in the past 7 years. The first one-" he pointed to the semi-tropical photo. "was in Florida, the next in South Carolina, and the youngest, well, the youngest before yours, was in Delaware..."

"Before mine," I muttered. I swear Agent Scully sighed.

He didn't miss a beat. "All of these animals were unplanned. None of their owners had intended to breed their horses and none of them saw any visitors to their pastures. Something is apparently moving northward and leaving offspring behind. We're interested in finding this something."

That time I did hear Agent Scully sigh.

"You're looking for a creature who you believe is the common sire of these equines?" I met Agent Mulder's eye. "Are you aware of how long the pregnancy of a horse is?"

"Uh, no."

"Eleven months. That means whoever sired Freak out there dropped by this part of New York close to two years ago. He could be in Maine inspiring Stephen King by now. Or maybe even Canada. I think your trail is ice cold, sir. If you'll excuse me...?" I was thinking, my tax dollars at work.

"Do you mind if we have a look at your horse?"

"Are you serious? Agent Mulder, I have made plans for the evening. My barn isn't far, but I'm really not dressed for it. I have people waiting for me."

Agent Scully intervened at this point and said, "Mulder, I think we'd better go."

Mulder was reluctant. "May we stop by tomorrow and see it?"

"Fine. Call me at my office tomorrow." I handed him a business card. Anything to get these two out of here right now.

I showed the FBI agents the door and gave Kate a call to explain my tardiness. "The friggin FBI, Kate! Like these guys don't have a drug bust or something to do!"

As I pulled out of the long driveway, I spotted a Ford rental car sitting at the end of it. Apparently the FBI had not wanted to risk the rental on the potholes in the driveway. Agents Mulder and Scully were standing outside the car. Mulder stood on the driver's side with his arms folded while Scully leaned across the hood, pointing a finger at him. Creeping the Jeep by, I could hear Scully yell "...ridiculous, Mulder...!"

Go, sister, I thought, and made the turn out of the driveway. I really hoped I hadn't missed "Come On Eileen" because of this.

**********

I got to my office at about 8 am the next morning and reached for my pile of messages. I had missed "Come On Eileen" last night, but I was able to console myself with some Blondie. The encounter with the FBI had left me a bit distracted all night, so Kate and I ended up leaving early without anyone buying us a drink. I flipped through the messages. Hm, this could be dealt with later, this could be delegated, and, ah, Agent Mulder had called right at 7am. Mary, my receptionist, informed me that Agent Mulder had called every 15 minutes since the first message and that he was told each time that I was not in and that I would call him back when I was.

Agent Mulder was a bulldog. No. A Jack Russell Terrier with a smoother voice.

I sighed and settled into my chair, flipping open my appointment book and hoping it had magically filled overnight. Nope. Just one gig in the afternoon, routine spring stuff for a couple of 4-H horses over in Stephentown. I checked with Mary. No new foals overnight? No. No colicks right now? No. Shoot. Boogers.

"OK, I have to go meet this Agent Mulder guy. Its important, I think, and I have to go. Page me if there's an emergency."

Mary looked up at me. "Is it about Freak?"

"Now why on Earth would it be about Freak?"

*************

I called Agent Mulder on my cell phone as I drove over to the barn. I'd beat him there by about 15 minutes or so. As I pulled in, Blue spotted the Jeep and came barreling across the slush and mud of the back pasture, hollering a greeting. He came to a sliding stop before actually hitting the fence. He nickered to me eagerly, even though breakfast had been a mere hour ago. I slipped him a peppermint and he crunched it happily, his sweet hay-scented breath now minty fresh. Freak jogged after Blue, but he didn't get any closer than about 50 feet to me. 

I wondered about Freak's sire. His mother had been a very typical chunk of a quarter horse. He was becoming a tall, elegant yearling. He had completely skipped over the gawky adolescent stage. I admired him for a moment. His pale blue eyes met mine and he snorted, causing his long silky chin hairs to ripple. His cloven hooves appeared to be in fine shape, which was good since there was no way he'd ever stand for a farrier. His horn was still only about 8 inches long. It glittered faintly, like mother of pearl. I heard the car pulling up just as Freak spooked violently to the other end of the pasture. Blue turned his head, watching his departure, and then turned his attention to the visitor. He nickered eagerly, hoping for more peppermints.

Freak would never take a peppermint from me, not even if I left it on the ground for him.

The sun broke through the clouds and a breeze flipped at the edges of the long coats the agents wore. I could see their lips moving, but the wind took their words away from me. Blue whinnied again, insistent. Mulder and Scully looked at him and moved closer.

"That isn't the horse, is it?" asked Mulder. He had a glint to his eye, so the comment may have been a joke.

"No, you just missed him. You scared him, actually," I pointed to the back fence line. "But if we're quiet and patient, he might wander back this way. He likes Blue."

"The color?" asked Agent Mulder. Another joke?

"This is Out Of The Blue," I indicated my old hunter. "Blue to his friends." Blue stretched his nose out to Mulder who gingerly petted it. Scully produced a small apple from her pocket as an offering which Blue cheerfully accepted. She smiled watching him crunch up the apple, juice running down his lips.

"Well, Agent Scully," I said. "You've just made a life long buddy there."

"I wanted a pony when I was a girl, but my family moved around a lot."

Ah, who doesn't want a pony when they're a girl? At least until they discover boys. Blue swallowed and stepped closer to Scully, snuffling toward her pockets, ever the beggar.

"Sorry, Blue, no more."

"There it is," Mulder's voice dropped to a whisper, and he pointed out into the pasture. Freak was standing beneath a naked maple tree, ears forward, muzzle tipped up, trying to scent the strangers he could see. We were upwind of him.

"That's him, Agent Mulder, Freak is a colt." It bothers me when people refer to animals as 'it.'

Equines are shy by nature. That goes with being a large prey animal. But they are also curious creatures. Not as curious as cats, and they don't have the morbid curiosity of cows...they have suspicious curiosity. Change is potentially fatal if you're a horse, so you'd better check it out. But be careful doing so.

Freak took a step in our direction, head still up, ears flicking back and forth, torn. Another step. A third. And slowly, Freak walked over, stopping frequently, hoping for the wind to change so that he wouldn't need to get closer to smell.... As he got closer, Agent Mulder whispered to Scully.

"What do you think, Scully?"

"I think Ringling Brothers had a unicorn on display several years ago," replied Scully. "It turned out to be a goat whose horn buds were surgically transplanted."

"That's a big goat out there, then."

"A man named Robert Vavra published a book of very convincing photographs of more horse-like unicorns a few years after the Ringling Brothers unicorn. But they were horses with false horns, Mulder."

I remember flipping through Vavra's book. Very convincing.

Freak paused about thirty feet from the fence line. It had been a very long time since he'd been this close to me. Freak met Mulder's eyes for a moment, then turned to Blue and whinnied. Blue nickered back and thrust his muzzle toward Agent Scully's pockets again. Look, Freak, he seemed to say, this one has goodies. Freak snorted, turned his attention back to Mulder, and took a step. He stretched his neck out and flared his nostrils, still trying to catch Mulder and Scully's scents. Not dropping his eyes for a second, Mulder reached a gloved hand out to Freak. Freak crept closer, until his muzzle was almost in Agent Mulder's hand. I realized I was holding my breath and quietly let it out. 

Freak sniffed Mulder's glove and his ears flipped forward. He raised his head suddenly, rolling his eyes and rearing. He pirouetted gracefully on his hindquarters and bolted to the far end of the pasture, disappearing over a small dip in the field.

Not to be outdone, Blue spun and galloped away, calling for his friend. I had always admired Blue's way of going, but today he seemed clumsy and primitive. The FBI agents and I remained silent. It seemed to me that something wonderful had happened and I was reluctant to let the moment go.

Agent Mulder was the first to speak, although he kept his attention on the pasture. "I really can only speak for myself, but, do you think he knows none of us are virgins?"

"What happened to those other horned horses? The ones in the pictures?" For some reason, I could not bring myself to call them unicorns in front of these FBI agents.

Mulder tore his eyes away from the spot Freak had been to meet mine. "The one in Florida was kept as an attraction at a gas station until it escaped its enclosure one night. The one in Delaware died after having its horn removed. The veterinarian thought it might be a cancer of some kind."

"Sarcoids," I muttered. I had thought the same of Freak.

"Apparently everything was fine until the growth was completely removed. Then the animal just died and could not be revived. A biopsy of the growth proved it to be a horn. Unicorn's horns are supposed to be an antidote to all poisons. I wonder if the anesthetics didn't overwhelm the animal once that protection was gone."

I just stared at him. Did he hear what he was saying? I flicked my eyes to Agent Scully, trying to read what she thought of this. She stood silently with her arms folded, watching her partner spin his theory, but not ready to jump on him in front of a stranger. I don't think she quite believed what he was saying, but she did believe he believed.

"I was unable to find out what became of the third one."

"You know," I said. "Horses are occasionally born with horns." I had done my own searching for answers. I didn't mention that most of the non-fictional horned horses I'd seen pictures of had tiny little bumps for horns and that the horns were usually paired and closer to the eyes than Freak's adornment. I left out that the horns only showed up in one rare breed called the Moyle and in certain strains of Spanish horses.

"Dr. Greene," Agent's Mulder's hazel eyes bored into me, looking into my very soul. "Do you really believe you are looking at a horse in your pasture?"

I held his gaze for a long minute before whispering "No."

I broke the moment by turning and walking into the barn. Agent Scully followed me, leaving her partner leaning against the fence. He seemed lost in thought.

"You haven't told me why the federal government is so interested in a horse with a horn they would send up two special agents to check it out," I reminded Agent Scully.

"We're actually officially working on another case in the area," she replied.

"So, you're saying that checking out my horse is unofficial business?"

"No," she paused and studied me. "Its been a back burner case for a long time and since we were nearby, we thought we would spend a day or two investigating."

That answer was as lame as three legged race horse, but I could see I wasn't going to get the real story here and I'd just have to accept that. Fine. There had been plenty of times when I spared people the entire truth while working on my own cases.

"Scully!" called Mulder from the fence line. "Could we run DNA tests on horses?"

Scully looked to me, letting me be the expert, I guess.

"A lot of registries blood type horses these days, and we do genetic testing on them for certain diseases," I said. "I'm not sure what kind of tests you want to run, but I can get you samples of the dam's blood for a control and then try and get some from Freak." Not looking forward to that. I'd have to knock him out for sure. And how I was going to get close enough for even intramuscular sedatives was beyond me.

Something tugged at me then. What happened if they DNA test Freak and discover he really *wasn't* a horse? 

"Whole blood and serum work for you guys?" was what I said.

We spent the next fifteen minutes or so hashing out the details. The FBI agents (well, Mulder, at least) did not want to entrust the blood samples to the US Postal Service, and they were planning on leaving the area by the end of the week, so I had to get the samples drawn immediately. I phoned my office to set up the call with Jane Madison so I could get 10cc of whole blood and another 10cc of serum from Freak's mother to serve as a control. Getting blood from Freak would be a project requiring some more planning.

Agent Mulder suggested a tranquilizer gun. Equine veterinarians do not generally have that sort of equipment, but I did have a colleague in the area who was into wildlife rehabilitation and I thought he might lend me his gun.

The idea of darting Freak bothered me. I had never fired a gun in my life. The only thing I knew about guns was where to aim on a horse if you needed to kill one with a firearm. I was reluctant to make Freak my first target, and I did not want the wildlife vet involved. I felt that the fewer people involved with Freak the better, and the FBI agents agreed with me.

Agent Mulder finally offered to fire the pistol. We set up a time for the following day around lunchtime, provided I got a hold of the gun and barring any emergencies.

The rest of the day dragged. I saw the 4-H horses and did their vaccinations mechanically. Usually I enjoy fielding the kids' questions and comments, but today I gave monosyllabic answers. I don't even think I said good-bye when I left. I was torn over what drug to use to dart Freak...Rompun was commonly used for deer in those dart guns, and it was used in horses, but sometimes it made horses more excitable rather than sedate. Dormosedan could be used at a smaller volume, but should I add some butorphanol too? What if whatever cocktail I'd decided on didn't work on Freak? And, my God, what would happen if this DNA test proved that Freak was not 100 percent domestic horse? Then what? Did the FBI come and take him away? For what purpose? I certainly recognized Freak's curiosity value, and it might be an interesting intellectual exercise to pick apart his DNA and see where it differed from a regular horse. It might even be interesting to create a new breed (?a new species?) of unicorns, resurrect them like the Tarpan. Or did they just note that he was unusual and leave us alone?

I doubted the FBI had investigated the National Show Horse people when they were crossing Arabians with Saddlebreds to create their breed. And while I personally felt that finding out what would drive someone to purposefully cross those particular breeds together, I suspected that most of the federal government would not be interested. Why Freak?

Why Freak?

The more I thought, the more disturbed I became. But I still went ahead with plans. Jane had no problem donating some of Star's blood once I tossed in some free vaccinations. She didn't even ask me why I wanted it or how Freak was doing. Maybe he no longer existed for her. I noticed that his foal picture was gone from Star's door. My wildlife rehabber was fine with allowing me to borrow his dart pistol. I even concocted a story about how I would need it to knock down a large and evil tempered draft horse for a castration. I assured him that my target was very large and kept in a small stall, so I wouldn't need his help. He agrees to drop off the gun at my office later that day, provided he got it back the next evening.

No problems. Who was I kidding?

It was getting dark when I finally arrived back at the barn for evening  
feeding. Blue was in his stall, banging on the grain tub for sustenance as  
usual. Freak was nowhere to be seen, as usual. I measured out Blue's  
sweet feed and gave it to him, then grabbed a flashlight and a bale of hay  
and headed out to the middle of the pasture. I broke the bale open (as  
usual) and kicked a few flakes around to make a big pile. My mind wandered  
around the potential circus that would occur here tomorrow afternoon. I  
decided on a little cocktail of--

What's that? I swore I heard a nicker. Not Blue's nicker, and not  
Freak's. I straightened up and shone the light out into the field.

"Freak?" Nothing. No reply. I was hearing things.

Feeling a bit creeped out now, I jogged back to the barn to be in the  
light. The temperature was dropping fast, and what had been slop this  
afternoon was beginning to firm up. Blue swung his head toward me as I  
entered his stall and snuffled a greeting before returning to his dinner.  
I got into the Jeep and fired it up, but just sat there in the driveway,  
letting the engine idle and the radio blare. Had I really heard a horse  
out there? Maybe it was a neighboring farm, and the breeze had caught the  
sound and wafted it to me just right.

Yeah, that was it. Jimmy Buffet came on the radio, singing about  
cheeseburgers in paradise. Cheeseburgers. I was hungry. I left for home,  
wondering what I might have there that I could turn into dinner.

************************

Several hours later, I bolted from sleep, fumbling for my pager before remembering that I wasn't on call that night. I checked the pager anyway, but that wasn't what woke me up. I turned on my bedside light and sat up. The clock said it was 2:34 in the morning.

Who did those friggin FBI people, especially the suave Agent Mulder, think they were anyway?

Really.

They barged into my life, asking all kinds of questions and offering no explanations. As far as I knew, the credentials that they showed me could have been faked. Those photos certainly could have been as well. And these people want me to risk my neck getting blood samples from an animal that has no need to be sampled? 

And everything was rush rush rush so I didn't get a chance to think things through and realize that I had rather neatly been maneuvered into a spot I didn't want to be in.

Well, the hell with that. I considered calling Agent Mulder's hotel room right then and there and telling him the deal was off, but he'd probably get his rented Ford over here before I could get safely back to sleep, and even if I did, he'd probably pound on the door until he got an audience. I turned the light off and settled myself down again. I'd just ruin his morning, hopefully before he'd gotten his first cup of coffee. I closed my eyes with a smile.

************************

I was still giggling to myself as I drove over to feed the horses that morning. I figured I'd give him a ring around 7 or so, giving me a half hour to take care of my charges and check my messages at the office. I pulled the Jeep into the driveway at the barn, parked and got out, relishing the cold snap of the mid-March morning. Cold, but the ground felt a little soft under my boots. It was still fairly dark, so I got my trusty Maglite out to navigate.

"Morning Blue, Freak-o!" 

There was no whinnied reply this morning, no banging of grain tubs. Then I saw the gate. It wasn't wide open, but it was creaking in the stiff breeze that was blowing. I ran to the gate, my stomach going cold. Oh, God, let Blue and Freak be OK.

The chain and padlock that normally held the gate shut were on the ground in a puddle that hadn't quite frozen. The padlock was popped open and had a two and a half inch wide hole bored through it. What on Earth would do that? Wouldn't a bolt cutter be easier for a horse thief anyway? I ran into the dark paddock.

"BLUE! FREAK!"

The flashlight beam seemed woefully inadequate. I swung it wildly, hoping to catch Freak's white hide in it. Blue was a dark bay and it would be easy to pass the light right over him without realizing it.

"BLUE! PLEASE!"

That's when I heard the hoofbeats, a strong gallop. Relieved, I aimed the flashlight at the sound and caught sight of a large white beast thundering toward me. Freak.

No. Not Freak. This was bigger. 

The creature trumpeted a challenge at me, like a stallion meeting a rival. I stood my ground, not really believing what I was seeing. The animal stopped about 50 feet in front of me, snorting and snaking its neck at me, ears back, teeth snapping. He was very very big, and the horn that glittered in the Maglite's beam must have been almost a yard long. He drew his head back, rolling his eyes and flaring his nostrils. His muzzle struck me as not-quite horselike, but that was the only observation I could make before he lowered his head and charged, that lethal horn aimed at my chest.

I turned the light off and ran like hell, darting to the left. The sky was beginning to lighten, enough so I wasn't going to kill myself by running into the fence, or the barn. Although that may have been a better alternative than death via shish kabob. I felt the animal rumble through where I had been. I fixed my sights on the fence line and ran for it, not looking back. Someone had once told me to deal with a charging bull this way. I had never tried it until now. I could only hope that charging unicorns and charging bulls operated under the same rules.

I was still far away when I put my foot into a hole--probably a hoofprint made in the mud the day before that had partially frozen overnight--and I went down, hitting my head on a stone. I didn't hear the snap of bone, but I was pretty sure I had just done a number on every ligament in my ankle. I sucked air in hard in lieu of a scream.

And suddenly there was Blue, standing over me, Freak by his side. I heard my pursuer slide to a stop and snort. I rolled to my side to look at him, and pulled myself to a sitting position using Blue's front legs as a crutch.

The unicorn stood facing Blue, his neck arched and tail whipping back and forth. The pale dawn light made a lovely setting for him, and one I would have appreciated more had this beast not been so intent in killing me. Freak whickered to him. The unicorn snorted again and tossed his head. Freak bolted for the open gate and the unicorn followed him. I heard the clatter of their hooves on the drive, and then they were off, cutting across the fields and headed for who knew where.

Blue put his head down, touching my face with his muzzle and he nickered as though saying hello. I patted his nose and leaned my head against his legs. I closed my eyes, just for a minute.

************************

My pager went off.

I was cold, and damp, and the pager was driving a spike right in between my eyes. I finally found the thing clipped to my belt and shut it off. I opened an eye and saw Blue was still standing guard, dozing now in the sun which had climbed much higher in the sky than I remembered it. I didn't really feel like getting up. The sun felt pretty good.

"Carolyn? Dr. Greene?"

At last, someone used my title the way it was meant to be used. I shut my eyes again.

"Scully, she's over here, call 911!"

I only remember a few smudgy things after that...a penlight in my eyes, checking my pupils, a siren, being loaded in the ambulance, paramedics bantering back and forth....

************************

I don't know how long I was awake, but suddenly I realized I was staring at an IV fluid pump and I thought that it would really be cool if I had one of those for the small animal end of the practice.

"Carolyn, honey, are you awake?" My dad's voice.

"Dad?" I tried to roll over to see him and my head screamed in protest. I winced.

"Its OK, I'm right here honey," he grabbed my hand and squeezed. "What happened? Blue didn't kick you, did he?"

"No, Dad," Thinking, a strike to the head from Blue would have me in a casket, rather than a hospital bed. "No, I fell." I sighed and closed my eyes.

Dad ran his fingers over my forehead. "Just rest, honey,"

I did.

************************

There was a seemingly endless parade of people through my room over the next 12 hours. Dad, my brother Don, people from work, and a doctor who was tickled to be treating a vet. He even brought in a picture of his Golden Retriever at some point.

Once, when the door to my room was slowly swinging closed after admitting someone, I thought I caught a glimpse of Agent Mulder in the hallway, trying to peer in. But I may have dreamed it.

************************

I felt good enough for Jell-O the next day, and Dad was gravely watching me eat.

"Carolyn," he said suddenly. "There are some people here from the FBI and they want to talk to you. If you're in some kind of trouble, you know that you can tell me about it."

I swallowed. But, Dad, could I honestly expect you to believe that I had almost been mowed down by some mythical creature? Current theory was that I had tripped and whacked my head while running through my pasture making sure my horses were OK since someone had left the gate open. The fact that one of the horses, a near yearling with what I had only previously described as a "deformity" was missing confirmed this for everyone involved. I was inclined to let people believe this. Everyone seemed to assume that my concussion had left me with more memory loss than it truly did.

"No, Dad, I know about them. I'm not in trouble. They just want to ask some questions."

"About what?"

"Horses."

************************

I did submit to a brief interview with the FBI agents. My version of events went something like this:

I arrived to feed the horses and found the gate wide open. I grabbed my flashlight and ran into the pasture to look for the horses, in hopes that they were not wandering the roads or countryside. I was worried and not really paying attention to where I was placing my feet and consequently tripped and smacked my head. There, I apparently drifted in and out of consciousness on the cold, wet ground. Yes, the office had gotten worried and they paged me several times, but they weren't exactly sure what was going on. After all, I don't always check in first thing in the morning, especially if I may have gotten an early morning emergency call from a client (another joy of horse practice...not all of your clients believe in the concept of "rotating emergency duty."). 

Anyway, my office had finally dispatched someone to my barn when I didn't answer the Jeep's phone. Agents Mulder and Scully, keeping their noonish appointment, got there about 10 minutes before my technician. 

Yes, I had reported Freak's absence to the local law authorities. No, horse thieving was not a common occurrence in the capital region of New York State.

That was my story and I stuck to it.

************************

As it ended up, I did tear some collateral ligaments in my ankle, putting me both in a cast and out of commission for a few weeks. I grumbled about being out of work, but one of my fellow associate vets noted that if I were a horse, my career would have been over, so I stopped whining. All a matter of perspective.

The time off did give me a chance to think. I hadn't heard of any sightings of my missing colt. I had tossed out some feeble feelers about my missing Freak, but since I didn't mention his horn--his most distinguishing feature--I wasn't too surprised that I hadn't heard anything.

It was almost a relief that Freak was gone. I no longer found myself dwelling on his predicament. Part of me was sure that Freak and his father--I was also sure that the other unicorn was his sire--would be just fine, perhaps wandering about the Adirondacks, perhaps even further north.

I'd been home and off my feet for about a week when the phone rang one afternoon.

"Hello? Dr. Greene?" A mellow male voice, one I could get lost in.

"Yes....?"

"This is Fox Mulder, I have a few questions..."

"Who?" *Fox* Mulder? I thought. Is that a porn star name or what?

"This is Special Agent Fox Mulder, we met a few weeks ago. I need to speak to you about a horse."

Oh yeah. The spooky looker. "The FBI guy."

"The FBI guy," he confirmed. "Have you found your horse yet?"

"No, and I'm not looking very hard, really," I confessed. "There is something romantic about him running free."

"What about the other horse?"

"Blue? He's fine. He sends Agent Scully his love, too."

Mulder blew that comment off. "I took the liberty of checking your pasture, you know, for horse thieves. There were a lot of hoofprints. A lot of cloven hoofprints, from a bigger critter than Freak."

"I never saw anything bigger than Freak, except Blue." I lied. "It was dark enough I didn't notice any hoofprints. Except the one I tripped in."

"What about the padlock?"

"I never found the padlock," I only partially lied that time. The chain and padlock were not next to the gate where I'd left them when I went back to check the place. No one had mentioned them to me. I was ready to bet that they were decorating an office somewhere in the Edgar J. Hoover Building at that moment.

Mulder paused. I don't think he was particularly happy with me.

"Agent Mulder, " I began. "You know what you saw in my pasture as well as I do. Freak was real. Freak is real. He should never have been a captive, and now he's free. Just let him be."

I solemnly swear to use my scientific knowledge and skills for...the relief of animal suffering...

"Most people never get to see the wonders, Agent Mulder," I continued. "Or at least they don't notice the ones that they do see. Take pleasure from what you know is true." 

There was a long, thoughtful pause. "You know, you got off cheap. The guy in Florida? He was run through, a hole like the one in your padlock right through his heart. He didn't get the chance to fire a shot in the pistol he was carrying either."

Stories say that the unicorn is gentle, but fierce when cornered, or threatened. I never had threatened the big unicorn. Perhaps that's why I was spared. I wondered why Agent Mulder hadn't let me in on this grisly little detail earlier. His potential reasons were as shadowy to me as the motivations of that unicorn stallion.

"Just because you don't have proof of a thing, or know the entire story doesn't mean something didn't happen," I offered.

"I know that better than you might think," he replied. I could hear a small smile in that reply. More shadows?

"Good-bye Agent Mulder," I said, and hung the phone up.

**Author's Note:**

> THE VETERINARIAN'S OATH:
> 
> Being admitted to the profession of veterinary medicine,  
> I solemnly swear to use my scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through the protection of animal health,  
> the relief of animal suffering,  
> the conservation of livestock resources,  
> the promotion of public health,  
> and the advancement of medical knowledge.  
> I will practice my profession conscientiously with dignity and in keeping with the principles of veterinary medical ethics.  
> I accept as a lifelong obligation the continual improvement of my professional knowledge and competence
> 
> There really is a rare breed of horse (the Moyle) that occasionally has a small horn. If you're interested in seeing a picture of one (which sadly, doesn't appear horned) check out OK State's rare breeds site at http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/moyle/index.htm
> 
> And if you'd like to check out a small slide show of Vavra's unicorns, hook over too http://www.robertvavra.com/ucal.html Vavra is an amazing equine photographer and these are some cool unicorns. 
> 
> If you're really starved for trivia, this story actually began as something scribbled out for English class way back in high school (about 15 years ago.) Originally, the tale of Bruce, the baby unicorn, was told by his mom Star. It got far to ambitious for me at the time and got shelved, but periodically over the next several years I would kick the idea around with no success.
> 
> Then I got into vet school and while in my senior year, I got to help deliver a 2 headed calf (it was dead. I still kick myself for not saving that skull.) I started thinking on all the really weird things vets actually do, and from there it was a short leap to hey, what if I'd delivered a unicorn foal? It probably didn't help that I had stumbled across a trilogy of books about veterinary students who were working on mythical creatures (and sorry, I can't recall the name of those books right now.)
> 
> And then I discovered X-Files fanfic. And then, suddenly, everything began falling into place. This version was started in February 1998 and June 1999.
> 
> Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed. DrS
> 
> *****  
> I have no idea if those links work or not, but Moyles are a thing and so was Robert Vavra.


End file.
